


Brightest Day

by ldysatyr



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Green Lantern (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 11:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5743006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ldysatyr/pseuds/ldysatyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver Queen is twenty-one when he forges unlikely friendships with a scientist and a solider.  He falls in love with them both.  Barry Allen is twenty-two when Oliver’s boat capsizes in the South China Sea and he leaves Starling City for Central City.  Hal Jordan is thirty when the USAF sends him to Afghanistan.  Five years later, Oliver returns.  </p>
<p>Basically, an AU where Barry is Felicity and Diggle is Hal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Scientist

1/?: The Scientist

Oliver Queen meets Barry Allen the day he is told, very politely, by the Dean of Student Affairs for Stanford University, to please leave and never come back. Oliver debates calling his mother while he sits in his idling car, his finger hovering over the dial button multiple times before the screen goes dark and he puts his phone away. As much as he knew this whole ‘going to college’ thing was going to backfire on him, it still pains him to fail. Pains him to think about the disappointment on his mother’s face when he gives her the news.  


Across the parking lot he hears a grunt and a loud thud. In the dark, Oliver can just make out the shape of a brown haired man struggling with another man a few paces from where his car is. Without thinking, Oliver slams his hand down on his car horn. The sound startles the other man and he jumps, barreling down the parking lot and away from Oliver’s car. 

Slowly, Oliver steps out of the vehicle and approaches the brown haired man, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. 

“Hey man, are you all right?” He questions as the brown haired man starts to uncurl from his semi-fetal position. The man appears to be all limbs, long legs and arms bent around him. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just. Give me a minute,” he states, still lying on the concrete parking lot floor, the sound of his pants dying down. Up close now, Oliver can better make out his facial features. His hair is more than a few shades darker than his own, although it seems to glow a bit under the light of the parking lot. He has smatters of light freckles across his face and neck and when his eyes finally met Oliver’s they are a warm shade of hazel. “Thanks.” 

“Sure,” Oliver replies, unthinking. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

The man’s eyes go wide for a moment before a startled laugh resonates across the empty parking lot. “Well, my mom’s dead and my dad’s in jail. So I guess not.” 

Oliver was never good at making friends. He’s had one friend his whole life and his relationship with Tommy had a lot more to do with convenience than anything else. Not knowing how to respond, Oliver simply shrugs. 

Sighing, the brown haired man finally rises. “Sorry, didn’t mean to throw that at you. It’s been a rather dreadful day.” 

Oliver shrugged again. “I just got thrown out of the university, so it can’t be worse than mine.” 

The man’s eyebrows rise just slightly. “Don’t take me up on that challenge. You’re Oliver Queen, right?” Oliver nods, not unused to strangers knowing his name. “I’m Barry. Barry Allen.” 

Oliver offers Barry his hand, which the man looks at curiously before accepting. 

* * *

“Tell me again, what am I doing here?” Oliver asks just a tad bit louder than the whisper he intended. Around him he makes eye contact with at least five students who quickly divert their attention away from the two friends. 

“Strategizing,” Barry responds firmly, although his eyes remain that mix of warmth and eagerness that always manages to drain away Oliver’s resistance to, well, basically anything. 

“Look Barry,” Oliver starts, “I know you’re trying to help, but the Dean was pretty clear that she didn’t think I deserved to be here.”

Barry’s brown gaze turns mutinous. “Well, she’s wrong. You deserve to be here and we’re going to prove it to her.” 

Oliver sighs, a cold feeling settling in his belly. “She’s not wrong. Barry, I’ve already told you, this will be the fourth Ivy League school I’ve gotten kicked out of.”

“Stanford isn’t an Ivy League school, Oliver,” Barry interrupts. “Ivy League is just an athletic conference that eight private universities in the Northeastern part of the country participate in. Its become somewhat synonymous with academic excellence for which I suppose you could consider Stanford such a school, but it certainly doesn’t fit into…” At Oliver’s raised hand, Barry abruptly stops and his freckled face turns a few shades pinker. “Sorry. What I meant to say is…you didn’t have me at those other schools.” 

At Oliver’s raised eyebrows, Barry shrugs. “All you need to do is show the Dean you can be serious about your studies.”

Oliver sighs. “Being your friend is going to suck.” To prove his point, Oliver is unable to stop his own grin in response to Barry’s blinding one. 

***

Under Barry’s quiet and unwavering confidence in him, Oliver spends an ‘off’ semester auditing several classes and scrounging together a list of university professors who have seen him participate in class, turn in papers and ace exams. When he presents this list to the Dean, it is enough to merit an invitation back to the school. 

To celebrate, Barry takes him to a local dive bar. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to get carded, well, everywhere,” Oliver calmly responds to the mutinous look on his friend’s face. After the third or fourth bartender ignores him, Oliver flags down a younger looking man with curly brown hair. 

“How can I help you folks?” The man drawls, his accent sounding both pleasant and unfamiliar in Oliver’s ears. 

“My friend would like a glass of champagne, I guess?” Barry answers with a questioning look to Oliver. At Oliver’s shrug, Barry nods and continues, “Yes, champagne and I wouldn’t mind a ginger ale I guess.” 

The bartender laughs, although not unkindly. “Not sure we have champagne. Mostly just beers and some really bad wine, but I can check in the back if you’d like. I wouldn’t recommend you drink anything I find back there though.” 

“I’ll just take a Guinness then,” Oliver replies with a nod towards their table and a hand to Barry’s shoulder to move him back towards said table. 

“Are you excited to be coming back?” Barry asks with the smile he has been wearing all day back on his face. 

“Technically, I never left,” Oliver replies, “You wouldn’t let me, remember?” It’s an old joke now between them. That night in the parking lot. Oliver walking Barry home that somehow turned to spending every day thereafter in each other’s company. Oliver had meant to get in his car that night and drive back to Starling City the next morning. Barry wouldn’t let him leave and here he was now. 

“I’m excited to not have to go to any more of your science lectures,” offers Oliver with a small smile back. Barry double majors in Chemistry and Biology with the vast majority of his current course load being advanced courses in, well, Biology and Chemistry. Oliver quickly found out he wouldn’t be impressing any of the professors in those departments. He had found his footing, however, in the Economics and Political Sciences departments. 

“I remember, Oliver,” Barry states simply, a warm hand finding its way on top of Oliver’s. Their drinks are dropped off and if either of them notices the lingering gaze their bartender gives them, they fail to acknowledge it.

* * *

Oliver learned in his second year of friendship with Barry Allen that although he is easily the sweetest guy he has ever known, there are certain subjects not to be brought up to the scientist. His mother is one of them. Oliver knows her name is Nora and that she died when Barry was eleven. Oliver also knew that Barry’s father was in Iron Heights, a prison facility out in Central City. It is not until many years later that Oliver is told that the two events are related.


	2. The Son of Robert Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit more of Oliver and Barry before we get to Hal. Warnings for abusive use of medical and science terminology.

2/?: The Son of Robert Queen 

* * *

Barry Allen will always remember he saved Oliver Queen first. Although the older man didn’t know it at the time and Barry despises the story so much, he never gives Oliver the full details of that night, or the day after for that matter. 

“Late again, Mr. Allen,” Barry cringes at Professor Palmer’s words as he makes his way to the back of the lecture hall. Seriously, there had to be at least a hundred students in this class, how Palmer always manages to zero in on him, Barry will never understand. 

There are kids who live their whole lives hating school. Barry Allen is not one of those kids. School was a safe haven for him. Structure in his life where there otherwise was none. For six hours every weekday, Barry knew where he needed to be, what he needed to do and who would be there with him. After the tailspin his life took one stormy Thursday night, Barry took comfort in such small things. 

After his mother’s death, and Barry will always phrase it as that, not “after his mother was murdered,” he became a ward of the state. His home was a state run facility where he shared a room with a rotating roster of boys going in and out of the foster care system. For two years he was in limbo because of his father’s trial, needing to stay close in case he was called as a witness. 

For a while, Detective Joe West was petitioning to be his foster father, but something happened. His estranged wife returned with a son and the matter was dropped. Barry didn’t blame him. Detective West had enough problems of his own to deal with. The son of an accused murderer would have put more strain on the Wests than they were willing to handle. 

Barry simply learned to keep his head down and graduated high school early, gaining early admission to Stanford and purchasing a one way ticket to California. 

Professor Palmer’s astronomy class is a popular introductory course. Dr. Ray Palmer, himself, is an acclaimed scientist and, according to ratemyprofessor.com, a “hottie.” Barry considers dropping the class after the first few weeks as an unneeded strain to his already heavy course load, but the assignments are easy and after last semester’s struggle through O Chem, he could use the lift to his GPA. If only Dr. Palmer himself wasn’t such a, well, Barry finds the man just a bit too tall for his own good. 

“Mr. Allen,” the aforementioned too tall man calls to him after lecture. Barry sighs and makes his way to the front of the lecture hall.

“Yes, Professor?” Barry asks, adjusting the strap of his satchel back and forth.

“I have an opening for a research assistant and despite your tendency to show up to class at whatever time suits you,” Ray Palmer starts, waving a hand to stop any interruption Barry may have offered, “You are the brightest student I have right now. I want to offer the position to you.” 

Barry stares blankly at Dr. Palmer for a few minutes, which is apparently too much awkwardness for the professor who continues without the desired response from Barry. 

“The position is paid. I know you’re here on scholarships, so if you won’t do it for the love of the stars, well, there’s that incentive. Think about it. Let me know by the end of the week.” Gaining the dismissal he apparently needed, Barry nods and starts backing away from the professor. He bumps into a few students lingering to talk to Dr. Palmer after class, all of whom shoot him jealous looks. It’s a strange experience for Barry who has never had or been given anything to merit a jealous look before. Before he has even left the lecture hall, Barry has resigned himself to accepting the position. 

***

The research assistant position ends up being the best job Barry has during his time at Stanford. Although not something that interests him naturally, Professor Palmer’s projects are very well funded and he becomes fast friends with his graduate students, two astrophysicists named Felicity Smoak and Caitlin Snow. 

The position is also designed such that he just needs to clock in his hours whenever he can. Sometimes this means he takes his lunch at Professor Palmer’s lab with Caitlin and other times he is on campus past three a.m., carefully inputting numbers into spreadsheets. 

“Barry. Go home.” Felicity’s tone of voice is pitched away from its usual Mary Poppins’ level sweetness to add a touch of Sarah Michelle Geller as Buffy Summers’ ‘cross me and I will gut you’. The addition is likely due in no small part to her exasperation at him for having said the same to him at least every ten minutes for the past hour. “You already put in your hours for this week. Staying late just means you’d be doing Dr. Palmer a favor and we’ve already established there’s absolutely no point in doing that,” she reasons. 

Sighing, Barry lets his head drop to his desk. “I know. It’s just these numbers don’t make sense and I can’t find where I must have made the error in entering them.” According to his spreadsheet, Abai, one of the asteroids Professor Palmer has been monitoring, has suddenly stopped moving, which didn’t make any lick of sense. 

Felicity places a warm hand on Barry’s back. “Well, the problem will still be here tomorrow. If you want, you can come in early and we can sift through the data together,” offers Felicity with a warm smile and a quick adjustment to her glasses. Barry pushes past the exhaustion to smile back at her. 

“Thanks, Felicity,” he replies, throwing his things into his satchel. 

“Anytime. Do you want me to call you a lyft? Or I can drop you off?” Felicity is already scrolling through her phone and only stops when she notices Barry shaking his head at the periphery of her vision. 

“Naw. I’m used to making my way through campus at this hour. It’ll take me fifteen minutes tops to get home. See you tomorrow, Felicity.” Barry makes a small salute to the astrophysicist and she brightens as expected. 

Barry was only fibbing a little to Felicity when he stated it would only take him fifteen minutes to make it home and he was used to doing it at this hour. He was used to making his way home in the dark with the chill in the air at its worst. He had done it enough times to know it wouldn’t take him fifteen minutes, however. But Barry didn’t like paying for lyfts and he knew Felicity had more important things to do than drive him home, so a nice long walk it was. 

Three blocks from his apartment complex he hears two loud, consecutive shouts and two men come thundering down the street towards him. One knocks into his shoulder so hard he pitches sideways. By the time Barry gets up, they are long gone, but there is a lone figure lying curled up on the sidewalk. 

“Holy smokes. Are you okay?” He slowly approaches the man, who fails to give any visible reaction to his inquiry. Not a good sign. Barry tentatively crouches next to the stranger and touches his shoulder. The man does react to that, flinching so violently, Barry loses his balance for the second time that night. His skin is very warm despite the cold night and his breathing sounds painful and labored. 

Barry’s mind thinks of four possible diagnoses for what could be causing this. He pushes blonde hair away from the man’s face to lift his eyelids. The stranger has the brightest blue eyes he’s ever seen. Also, he narrows the diagnoses down to three. A quick check to his pulse brings it down to one. Barry fumbles with his cellphone while digging through his satchel for the epi pen he keeps there for such emergencies. The emergencies are supposed to be for him, but, well, he doesn’t think anyone would fault him for its use here. He plunges the injector into the man’s thigh just as the 911 operator picks up. 

***

Barry never does make it home that night. The man turns out to be Oliver Queen and the police question him for hours about what he was doing there with him and how he came to save his life. Apparently, prior to being found by Barry, Oliver had been partying with some friends. Trace amounts of Vertigo was found in his system. The drug is not one Barry is too familiar with, but one of the components of it is benzodiazepine. Which, in addition to causing hallucinations in its users, is also something Oliver Queen is apparently severely allergic too. Although he stays in the hospital with Oliver for several hours, he doesn’t see him again that night. 

The next morning he trudges his way to Dr. Palmer’s lab and literally falls into the chair next to Felicity. 

“Rough night, Casey Jones?” Felicity wheedles before she catches the look in his eyes and her face shifts from playful to concerned. “Holy smokes. What happened to you?” Felicity takes in the wane look in the man’s usual warm hazel eyes. He also appeared to be wearing the same clothes as he was last night, although it wouldn’t surprise Felicity if Barry simply owned multiple pairs of the exact same shirt and pants. 

“I saved a man last night. And this,” he gestures to himself, “is the thanks I get.” Barry then carefully drops his head on an empty space on Felicity’s desk and says nothing for another two hours. 

***

Robert Queen, CEO of Queen Consolidated, is standing outside of Barry’s apartment complex when he finally makes his way home. His features are harsher than his son’s somehow and made harsher still by the charcoal suit he is wearing that probably costs more than Barry’s monthly rent. Barry idly wonders if the man owns any casualwear. Not knowing how else to respond to the man’s presence, Barry gestures that the man should come into his apartment. 

Barry hardly lives in squalor. His apartment is not big, but he keeps it organized and clean. He has a few pieces of well-worn, but sturdy furniture and an increasingly overflowing bookshelf. The look on Robert Queen’s face, however, clearly indicates he would not agree to such an assessment. 

“Can I get you a glass of water, Mr. Queen?” Barry offers politely, not sure of what to say to the other man as he is clearly as uncomfortable with the situation as he is. A fact that Barry finds quietly hilarious as he is the one who chose to put himself in this situation to begin with. Barry, on the other hand, would never have volunteered for this. Awkward situations come to him pretty regularly on their own without the addition of him trying to seek them out. 

At the sound of Barry’s voice, however, Robert Queen apparently pulls himself together to look less like the worried father Barry caught brief glances of last night and more like the haughty billionaires in those soap operas he most definitely does not watch with Caitlin, no, stop accusing me, it doesn’t happen, Felicity. 

“No, I won’t be staying long. I just came by to thank you, Mr. Allen, for saving my son last night,” the older man responds, extending his hand to him. Barry looks at the proffered hand suspiciously before clasping it. Mr. Queen’s grip is strong, but curiously warm. Barry recalls all the interviews he has had over the years both for school and work and wonders if this is somehow a business handshake. 

“I’m glad I was there to help, sir,” Barry responds honestly. Even if the event did appear to be a continuing interruption to the other man’s life, if he wasn’t, Oliver Queen may not have lived and silently suffocating to death on an empty street is not the kind of fate Barry would wish on anyone. 

Robert Queen appears to almost smile at this, although it does not reach his eyes. Barry wonders curiously if the man ever smiles. He certainly didn’t all last night. “I wanted to give you this,” the man says, reaching into his coat pocket to present Barry with a folded up check. “A ‘thank you’ of sorts for your help and a request that you choose to be discrete about what you saw last night.” 

Barry stares at the folded up piece of paper blankly for several minutes before shaking his head and recoiling from the other man. “That. That is not necessary, Mr. Queen.” 

Robert Queen smiles his smile that is not a smile at all. “I think that it is, Mr. Allen.” 

In order to get him to leave, Barry takes the offered check and shakes Mr. Queen’s hand again. Barry places the check randomly in a page in his “Chemistry: Matter and Change” book and resolves himself to never think about Robert or Oliver Queen again. 

***

Four months later, Oliver Queen stops a mugger from strangling him in a parking lot three blocks from campus.


End file.
